


Last Stand

by Lysandra



Category: Bartimaeus - Jonathan Stroud
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Gen, brief mention of suicidal ideation, only a little though
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-19
Updated: 2018-01-19
Packaged: 2019-03-06 18:36:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13417194
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lysandra/pseuds/Lysandra
Summary: A month or so after the glass palace explosion, Faquarl has an intense encounter with someone surprising. AU.





	Last Stand

**Author's Note:**

> The idea for this story was written by ngorso on tumblr. Thanks!

Faquarl could not, when he occasionally thought of it after all this time, decide exactly why he’d fled from Bartimaeus and that stupid child. He’d been all poised to kill them, abomination that they were, but something in him had drawn back at the thought. It wasn’t shame, he decided. It _wasn’t_.

But...well, perhaps the thought of playing babysitter to Lord Nouda for the rest of his existence on the Earth was less than enjoyable. That was assuming Nouda didn’t destroy him in a rage, as Faquarl had come to realize that Nouda had the impulse control and general temperament of an oversized toddler (though, of course, he kept this thought to himself.) Wasn’t that why he’d arranged this? To escape constant servitude, constant work? It was almost insulting that he’d ended up waiting on Nouda hand and foot. He felt as though he’d aged two thousand years over the past six hours.

And so, on that note, and perhaps anticipating that that staff held the key to his true freedom, Faquarl waited until their back was turned, and then he made his escape. It was a maneuver Bartimaeus would have approved of. Faquarl hated that thought.

He heard the explosion from the very outskirts of town. Ah, well. _C’est la vie._

* * *

 

Faquarl knew, then, that he needed to keep a low profile. For the time being, at least. If he kept up his current rate of slaughter, they could simply track him by the trail of bodies. The combined Mandrake-Bartimaeus creature he would doubtless be able to sense a mile off - they were disturbingly vital - but whatever the remaining British government decided to send his way might be more subtle. Faquarl devoured a man in the lavatory on the plane between Edinburgh and Brussels, but his heart wasn’t in it. That strange hollow feeling - it was almost as if it was consuming him from the inside out, chipping away at his appetite. He needed a little break, some time to recuperate before re-launching his assault.

He ended up in Bruges.

He paid for a hotel room, concealed the cash he’d withdrawn from Hopkins’s bank account, and crawled into his king-size bed, where he promptly fell asleep for sixteen hours. Upon waking, he got up, staggered across the room, and immediately crashed into the doorframe. He rubbed his forehead irritably. He had a pretty good handle on proprioception now, but he still occasionally forgot exactly how much space he took up. He took a bath, briefly considered drowning himself, toweled off. He paced uncomfortably in his room, curtains drawn, for close to an hour before reluctantly ordering room service. He had to fill the void inside with _something,_ and eating the hotel staff was probably a risky idea. He decided on pork sausage, a lot of it, and roasted potatoes. And an orange. This last because his human body had recently begun to take offense to his all-meat diet and he found his gums sometimes bled at random. He accepted the food with as much grace as he could conjure up (which was not very much), and then he sat on the bed and stared at it. It didn’t look especially appealing. Dead meat. Nonetheless…

He ate the orange first. It was sweet, but surprisingly not off-putting the way sugar usually was. It was actually rather pleasant. He ate it like a feral animal, tearing it open with his nails, and when he was done he ate the potatoes, which tasted like carbohydrates and salt, and then he ate the sausages, which he liked. Afterward, he went back to sleep for several more hours before waking up and aimlessly starting a crossword puzzle. He hunted down a copy of the newspaper, read it, cursed.

The next few weeks passed in a similar fashion. Faquarl ventured outside once in a while, but he was wary of exposing himself to too many eyes. He would wake, bathe, eat, pace, and, in various combinations of those few things, repeat. Until one morning, when he awoke to the feeling of a distinct presence, tickling at the edges of his awareness. He lay frozen under the sheets, feeling the telltale tingle of something with a powerful aura. Something _close._ But it wasn’t just strong; it was...odd. The presence of most spirits was distinct and separate from the heavy earthen matter around them. Spotting them was as easy as picking a red marble out of a bowl of blue ones. But this thing, whatever it might be, seemed almost to grow out of the earth. It felt dangerously stable. Was it...them? No; not quite strong enough for that. Something else. And it was almost certainly here for him.

There was a certain relief in that. At the very least he’d have a good fight; if he was very lucky, perhaps he’d die. The empty feeling inside him was more cavernous than ever. It could not be filled with slaughter. It could not be filled with sausages, or wine, or sleeping, or pain. He wanted not to have to think about it anymore. Going home...that would be fine. Going elsewhere would perhaps be even better. He decided to lie in wait.

Days passed. A week. He was tired; he was so damned tired. He pulled the curtains back savagely one morning and stared out at the tranquil Belgian city.

“ _Come on!_ ” he shouted, so loud the windowpanes rattled. Then, with a yell, he drew back and punched a hole in the nearby wall.

“Ow,” he said, wiping plaster off his bruised knuckles. Then, he decided not to wait any longer. He’d been patient enough. If the creature he felt wouldn’t come to him, then he would simply have to go to it.

* * *

 

Kitty was preparing to drink a freshly-brewed cup of tea when there came a knock at her hotel room door. She pursed her lips. Had Jakob come by? Why? She’d seen him earlier in the day, and was scheduled to see him tomorrow. She padded cautiously to the door (wary, always wary) and briefly considered pretending not to be home. But, if she was in danger, almost certainly that wouldn’t work. Kitty stood. She stole over to the nightstand and withdrew a single silver knife, curved, with a carved handle of stag’s horn. She tucked the knife into the waistband of her trousers and, very slowly, crept to the door. She cursed the lack of a peep-hole. She unlatched the door. She turned the knob.

The man on the other side looked stunned. “ _You!_ ” he cried, eyebrows shooting up in surprise.

“ _You!_ ” Kitty sputtered back, into the face of the late Clem Hopkins. Him. The demon. He was-

Kitty didn’t think; quick as a striking mantis, she reeled back and punched the astonished djinni in the face. There was a worrisome crack.

“Ow! My face!”

Kitty drew her knife; she advanced on him, heart hammering.

“Idiot girl! How dare you?!” A wave of force, and then a burst of green light hit Kitty in the chest and she was thrown backward, gasping. The Detonation knocked the wind out of her, but worse that that: it made her angry. She coughed and rose into a half-sitting position.

“Ah!” spat the djinni. What was his name again? She racked her brains. “So you’re one of _those_.” He took a step forward and slammed the door to her room behind him as he entered. Kitty was still struggling to her feet; her joints weren’t what they once were. She let loose a stream of obscenities.

“Well, fuck you, too,” said Faquarl. That was him, wasn’t it? Yes, she’d heard him say it. He stepped closer and stood over her, smiling. Kitty acted on instinct once again, and sucker-punched him in the most delicate part of Hopkins’s anatomy.

Faquarl screamed. His knees hit the floor and he doubled over. “ _Oh, godless Earth!_ ” he shouted, hands cupping his injury.

Kitty was on her feet; she still had her knife, in her off hand. But something stopped her briefly. He looked so….so _tired_ , haggard, worn to the bone. He had the sallow look of one who'd been through hell. And doubtless he had information that would be useful, tips on where the other escaped hybrids were.

“Why are you here?” she shouted. “ _What do you want?_ ” Why should he come all this way just to kill _her?_ Did he hate Bartimaeus that much, that he would kill anyone he was ever kind to, even after he was dead?

Faquarl groaned, struggling to straighten around the pain in his pelvis. Then he made a noise that was an eerie attempt at a chuckle. “As if you don’t know,” he said. “Don’t play stupid, child. They’ve sent you after me, clearly. Or whatever it is you’re carrying with you.”

“What?” said Kitty.

“I sensed your aura a mile away,” said Faquarl. “It’s strong, but oddly unique. What is it? Some charm? A weapon?” He seemed to have recovered from her attack, but still he knelt on the floor, eyeing her. Planning his next assault, no doubt.

“There’s nothing,” said Kitty. “I have absolutely nothing. You’re mad.”

“Your _aura_ ,” the djinni insisted. “It’s far too bright to be merely human.”

 _Oh_ , thought Kitty. Well...that made sense. Of course the Other Place had changed her; she had often felt herself to be carrying a little piece of it around with her since. If her aura had changed, that wasn’t a surprise. What _was_ a surprise was that it was apparently so powerful that a fugitive djinni could sense it at a distance.

And assume that she’d been sent to kill him.

“I’ll grant you that I’m...unlike most humans,” said Kitty. Her voice quivered a little. Anger rose thick in her throat, but she knew that she could never win against the evil, conniving, traitorous bastard. She wanted, more than anything, not to be in the same room with Faquarl any longer. “For example: if you leave now, I’ll let you be. I can’t promise I won’t tell the British government you’re here, but I won’t kill you. Just go.”

Faquarl stared at her. She couldn’t tell what he was thinking. Bartimaeus had been like that, too.

“You used to look different,” he said. “Younger.”

“I went to the Other Place.” Kitty didn’t know why she told him. Perhaps she was tired of carrying it inside her, a homesick ache that no one could ever understand.

Faquarl stood, slowly, hands raised in a gesture of peace. Kitty’s hand tightened on the handle of her knife, but she didn’t attack.

“You lie,” he said quietly. “But such an odd thing to lie about.”

“Look at me,” said Kitty. She was proud despite herself. “Look at my aura; look at my face. I crossed the veil and paid the price in flesh. I saw the four elemental walls and the infinite chaos of your home. I was there.”

Faquarl looked at her speculatively. “It was Bartimaeus, wasn’t it?” he said.

“Yes,” said Kitty. _How dare you say his name,_ she thought.

“Fool. How vile.” He was sizing her up again, she could tell, his distaste outweighing his mild interest. And suddenly, Kitty could repress her hate no longer.

“He was better and braver than you’ll ever be.” Faquarl took a half-step back, actually staggered by her audacity. She realized she was shaking.

“So you hate us. So what? You didn’t want to make things better for your kind; that was never your goal. All you wanted was revenge. All you wanted was to throw a screaming tantrum like a child who’s been denied his toys!” Kitty’s voice was rising as she stared into Hopkins’s face, which was beginning to go red. “You coward! Why work for a better future when you can just kill everyone, is that it? Well, I have news for you: you won’t have your revenge. You’ll never feel better. Because you’ve trapped yourself in a prison of hatred, and that is something no man can free you from! You’re a sad, angry little man, and now that’s all you’ll ever be!”

Faquarl gawked at her. He leaned back a bit, like a child about to run and hide behind his mother’s skirts.

“You- you-” He seemed to be having trouble speaking. Kitty’s heart hammered; she knew she’d made a possibly fatal mistake, but through the haze of adrenaline and rage she almost didn’t care. “You could never! You could never understand! How dare you claim to know my mind, you stupid, arrogant girl!” He was shouting, red-faced, and so incensed that Kitty knew she’d hit the nail on the head. “Bartimaeus was a fool and he deserved what he-”

“Don’t you _dare!_ ” Kitty screamed, shaking. “Don’t you _dare_ speak ill of him! He suffered just as much as you, and he was never anything _like_ you! He counted on some of us to be better, and do you know what happened? We _were!_ I went after him! And I’m going to fix things! End your slavery! And you and all the spirits after you will be the heirs to his legacy!”

“And for what?!” Faquarl cried. “What do you stand to gain?!”

“ _Nothing!_ ” Kitty’s voice cracked. “ _That’s what love is!_ ” She missed Bartimaeus, she suddenly realized. She missed him fiercely, wanted him there, jeering and tossing barbs at this monster.

“I don’t believe it,” said Faquarl, his voice suddenly low. His eyes darted from side to side. He was trembling, she realized. He made no move to attack her.

"Figures," said Kitty. She tossed out her next words like poisoned barbs: "This is easier, isn't it? To just hate all of us? You lazy-"

"Oh, go to hell!" Faquarl was getting riled up again, it seemed. "As if you could ever care about us!"

"Why is that so hard to believe?" Kitty cried. "We're not so different are, we? We are- we're two sides of the same coin! We'd be nothing without each other, and if we can't help each other then there's no hope for any of us, is there?!" Kitty realized she was shouting again, her throat beginning to ache.

Suddenly, a dull thumping as someone in one of the adjacent rooms banged on the wall. They both jumped a little. Kitty had tears on her face, she realized. She chuckled a little, despite herself. She hated him so much that it hurt.

“Get out of my room,” she said lowly.

The corners of Faquarl’s mouth quirked up. “Certainly,” he said. He half-raised a hand, and Kitty’s heart skipped a beat, but then he seemed to think better of it and it came to rest on his hip. “But when I do...perhaps you’d care to join me for a drink?”


End file.
